Monday, 24 January 2011

An unexpected stroke of inspiration

I've been told that ideas can come at 3am in the morning, whereupon you must write it down lest you should forget it. At first, I was like 'Someone waking up to write an idea down? You must be joking!' but, last night, I got my first visit from a night muse. I like to imagine the muse was green and could glow in the dark. It was also in a shape of a fox. What can I say? I have an odd imagination.

So...there I was, lying in bed, sometime after eleven, waiting for sleep to claim me. I started to feel it gently pull me under. It was then that the first three lines to a new story suddenly shot through my brain. Scrambling upright, I grabbed a new notepad - wrote the first three lines as best as I could considering how tired I was. Then sat down and stared at it.

I didn't really want to start a new story - the story I am working on now, Burgess Hill, I am determined to finish to show myself that I can do it - that I can write another novel. And I know I can. Yet Burgess Hill, I know, never had the same excitement that Blood Moon did - and in all fairness it was never supposed to - and with these three lines, I felt the old excitement bubbling up again. I know what this story is going to be. Its Blood Moon...but completely different.

This new story - Underdog it will be called - will feature the same two main protoganists: Izzy and James. Izzy will not be a shapeshifter - too complicated - she will be a werewolf. James will be a half demon. I still have yet to decide whether he will still be the son of Lucifer or a different demon. The plot is different. The characters revised in everything except first names. These names have always stood out to me...and I know I should probably keep them different since everything else in Underdog will be, but yet it seems to me that those names suit the characters as well as they did the unrevised versions. I am not abandoning Blood Moon - crucial parts of it are just the same. I am making it different.

But I must complete Burgess Hill. So therefore am going to try writing both. I've done that before. It didn't work out - but I was much younger then and a different writer to the one I am now. I am determined to make this work.

Sorry for rambling...just another new experience to add onto the list.